Telescopes

A Very Short Introduction

Geoff Cottrell Oxford University Press £7.99 PB The smallness of this pocket-sized Very Short Introduction belies the depth into which it delves. Telescopes explores an instrument that has made us aware of the Universe around us. This historical and scientific survey of the telescope threads a path from our most basic means of grasping light – the human eye – to the giant lightbuckets millions of times more powerful that are yet to be built. The prose is authoritative and insightful, leading readers on a remarkable 400-year journey from the earliest reflectors and refractors of the 17th century to the ‘silvering’ of mirrors, and on to the use of

photography to manipulate light, discern far-off objects and explore the breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Yet for all the technological advances made on the ground from Galileo’s day, our most significant breakthrough came when we first placed a telescope above Earth’s distorting atmosphere. Along with developments in chargecoupled devices, computer and software control and adaptive optics, modern astronomers now have a sturdy arsenal of tools at their disposal to peer deeper into the Universe and farther into the past than ever before.

Published four centuries after Galileo’s primitive telescope left its indelible mark and made Jupiter’s four large moons known for the first time, Telescopes brings us up to date via a glimpse through the eyepiece towards the future. It ends by wistfully whetting the reader’s appetite for upcoming telescopes on the ground and in space that, like the human eye itself, will continue to evolve.

BEN EVANS is the author of several books on human spaceflight, and is a science and astronomy writer